Conversely, the spiritual person is examined and understood by no one who is not spiritual. In other words, the natural person is not in a position to discern and judge the spiritual person. What does Paul have in mind? There are three prominent possibilities. The first imagines persecution. Paul may be aware of an oral tradition that assured the persecuted believer of being endowed with wise speech originating from God’s Spirit that the rulers, judges, and leaders they stand before will not be able to gainsay (Matt 10:19–20; Luke 12:11–12; 21:12–15). Perhaps, too, Paul implies that the rulers of this age were in no spiritual position to sentence Jesus to death (cf. 2:8). A second option functions as a prelude to passages such as 4:1–5 and 9:3 where Paul, who spiritually has the mind of Christ, discourages the Corinthians from criticizing him.204 Their behavior shows that they evaluate things by worldly standards of this age, and so they are not in a position to examine his abilities—the Lord will be his judge instead. A third possibility anticipates the content of 6:1–8. Paul anticipates correcting the Corinthian assumption that magistrates void of God’s Spirit should be judging cases between congregation members who do have God’s Spirit. Possibly a combination of these options is meant.
The apostle concludes this passage by quoting Isaiah with the inquiry, Who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him? (cf. Isa 40:13).205 The context in Isaiah highlights the knowledge and power of God as creator over the nations (40:12–15). What is stressed is that if no one is able to measure God’s creation, how much less could anyone hope to know or measure the mind of God?206 This question expects the answer “no one” but receives instead the outlandish claim that the Spirit-led are able to receive divine thoughts (cf. 1 Cor 2:10–11). Paul plays on the title “Lord” from Isa 40:13, which originally refers to God, but as usual he gives this title to Christ: we have the mind of Christ.207 This grand image of Paul’s, of the Lord being both God and Christ, or perhaps God-in-Christ, seems to present the mind of God and the mind of Christ almost interchangeably. To be sure, the word “mind” indirectly exhorts the Corinthians to be of the same “mind” in unity with the mind of Christ (1:10, 13), but Paul is stressing a revelatory understanding of this mind based on Isaiah.208 This notion of Spirit-filled believers in Christ knowing divine thoughts sounds like boasting, and in one sense it is—they are rightly boasting “in the Lord” who grants them salvation and spiritual gifts (1:30–31). If having the mind of Christ seems to promote a privileged status, we should remember that Paul’s Christ was crucified, and as such this knowledge serves to criticize all privilege related to boasting, quarrelling, arrogance, and self-directed elitist wisdom.209
Nurturing Babies in Christ (3:1–4)
Paul continues in the same mode of discourse but now directly addresses the Corinthians’ shortcoming related to spiritual wisdom: And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual but as fleshly people, as babies in Christ. Such language elicits pathos; emotions are aroused by the use of familial language and shame with the aim of dissuading the auditors from divisive behavior. This is reinforced by rhetorical questions in 3:3–4 that prompt them to admit their fleshly behavior. The Corinthians are still babies rather than mature adults who can digest divine wisdom. They need to be fed milk, not solid food. This metaphoric consumption relates to learning elementary teachings (cf. Epictetus Diatr. 2.16.26–37; Philo Congr. 18–19; Heb 5:12–14).210 Paul has to take on the role of a nurse and feed them again the basics of spiritual training.211 This does not mean, however, that they should move on from the message of the cross to more “mature” teachings.212 Their problem is more ethical than intellectual. They do not properly comprehend what Christ crucified means for their behavior. The message of Christ crucified must always remain their foundation (3:11), and any further wisdom and ethics they might learn should be in conformity to that message. But instead of emulating humility and power in weakness, they have been feeding off the metaphoric staples of self-emulation, status seeking, and competitive oratory evaluations.
Their current state and behavior are described as fleshly,213 and this predicament evokes the Corinthians to see themselves in similar light with the natural person who being void of God’s Spirit finds divine wisdom incomprehensible (2:13).214 To be fleshly in this regard is to walk in a human way, that is, they regularly conduct themselves in accordance with the people of this age who are subject to vices and ideologies contrary to the new creation in Christ. If we tease out this line of inference, the implicit way they should be walking is in the Spirit, as being in conformity with the Spirit’s guidance and exercising moral virtues such as love, peace, kindness, and meekness (cf. Gal 5:16–25).
Their behavior exhibits envy and discord.215 Both appear in Paul’s vice lists, and their practice results in eternal consequences (Gal 5:19–21; 2 Cor 12:20; Rom 13:13). The latter vice (ἔρις) we explored in relation to the congregation’s divisive allegiances (1:11–12), though here only the main rivalry between I am of Paul and I am of Apollos is stressed. The former vice (ζῆλος) connotes a type of zeal or envy which harms rather than helps others, being concerned primarily about one’s own advancement.216 It also may arise when a person feels left behind by another’s upward mobility (Cicero, De or. 2.52.209) and connote competition that benefits one’s group while leading to dishonor others (Jas 3:13–16). Clement, writing to the Corinthians a generation after Paul, provides examples of envy from Israel’s scriptures, each having harmful consequences including Cain’s envy over Abel, Jacob’s sons over Joseph, and Saul over David (1 Clem. 3.1–6.4 cf. Gen 4, 37; 1 Sam 18). More contemporary with Paul’s time, Caligula became envious of Seneca’s eloquence and contemplated ordering his death (Cassius Dio 59.19.6–8; cf. Suetonius Calig. 53.2). What Paul perhaps fears is a congregational scene similar to one witnessed in Corinth’s vicinity by Dio Chrysostom in which quarreling among sophist students devolved into a shouting and abusive match (Or. 8.9). As Bruce Winter points out, “the conduct of the disciples of the sophists and the Christian disciples was identical. There were the same assertions of loyalty to one’s teachers, the same pride (‘puffed up’) with the same strife resulting as they denigrated other teachers while at the same time singing the praises of their own.”217 Envy and discord manifested among congregants as they claimed loyalty to their mentors.
On Planting and Building the Corinthian Congregation (3:5–17)
This passage depicts Paul and Apollos in the metaphors of field workers and builders with the Corinthians as the field of God they cultivate (3:5–9b) and temple of God they erect (3:9c–17). Through the first image Paul teaches against discord several ways.218 First, with the rhetorical questions, What, then, is Apollos? And what is Paul?, the apostle sets up an answer that deflates status seeking and competition—Paul and Apollos are lowly servants through whom the Corinthians believed the gospel.219 The congregation must envision their leaders being no better than slaves